NATHANS CONZ PHOTO Rebekah Glatt,  a woman in a man´s house.

The inside of the Delta Kappa Epsilon house at Wesleyan University looks just as you'd expect a frat house to look -- beat up wood floors and disorganized furniture. Trash, mostly pizza boxes, outside people's doors; a closet-door- turned-beer-pong table leaning against a hallway wall. It's not an ideal living situation, but it's no more messy than any other houseful of college guys, frat brothers or otherwise.

 

When Rebekah Glatt opens the front door of the house, she quickly apologizes for the mess (the aftermath of a recent party that has yet to be cleaned up), but it doesn't seem to bother her. Nor does the mess in her room (it's finals week and she's been busy).

 

Glatt is the only female, among 22 males, living in the DKE fraternity house, located across High Street from the Wesleyan University campus. When she finishes taking finals later this week, it'll mark the end of her first semester at DKE. And while she says she has enjoyed her time there and feels comfortable in her situation, it hasn't been easy.

 

"It sucks when there's a lack of toilet paper because I'm the only one that ever needs it," she says with a laugh. Joking aside, the hardest part of living in the house, Glatt says, is dealing with the brothers' sleeping habits.

 

"They're up all hours of the night and they sleep really late in the morning. I'm completely the opposite," she says. The 20-year-old Fairfield native works a full-time job and takes five classes (even though Wesleyan recommends taking only four).

 

"I get home from work around 11 or 12 and I usually just want to go to bed. And you know, I can't go to bed. It's really loud when I'm trying to study or trying to sleep," she says.

 

The fraternity had to adapt to living with a female, says chapter president Mike Barbera. They replaced their clear shower curtains with solid ones. They've had to ask Glatt to avoid certain rooms during brotherhood-only events, as they have asked male boarders in the past.

 

"You just have to talk to the brothers and make sure they respect the different needs Rebekah might have living here," Barbera tells the Advocate, adding that the transition has been smooth.

"There's been nothing awkward at all. I've had more problems with other brothers than with her. She is such a nice person."

 

Glatt decided to live in the fraternity house, in part, as a favor to the DKE brothers, many of whom are her friends. She was asked by some brothers to live in the house to help the fraternity meet newly enforced school guidelines that require them to actively recruit women to live there. They figured if they were going to have any girl live with them, it should be one they knew.

 

"I hadn't really planned on living there," Glatt says. "I agreed to it because these people are my friends and I believe they have a right to live on campus."

 

Before this year, only males lived in the house, but that all changed when the Wesleyan administration began enforcing a rule that required all of the school's program houses, including fraternities, to be open to all students. Program housing allows students with common interests to live together under one roof. There are approximately 25 program houses at Wesleyan including the Out House (for outdoor enthusiasts) and the Well-Being House (a substance-free environment).

 

In order for DKE to remain "on campus" as a recognized program house, frat members had to actively recruit female housemates, though the frat isn't required to allow females to become members. DKE advertised and visited classes traditionally popular with female students.

 

Because undergraduate students are required to live in on-campus housing (dorms or program houses), frats typically comply with university regulations in order for their house to be granted program house status. Otherwise brothers who wanted to live in the DKE house would be forced to pay for a room there as well as in a dorm, as is the case with another Wesleyan fraternity, Psi Upsilon. Because Psi U decided not to allow women into its house, residents there must pay rent for on-campus housing.

 

Only around 50 of the school's approximately 2,750 undergraduates receive off-campus housing exemptions.